Reviewed by Dr. Tiffany Raymond, PhD and Theron Raymond (5th grader)
As part of its 27th season, Prime Stage presents James Still’s “And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank”. Pittsburgh theater directorial legend Art DeConciliis has the depth of experience and range to do justice to Still’s magnum opus that tackles the Holocaust through the eyes of Anne Frank and those who were close to her.
The play is multi-media. It cuts between 1995 video footage of Holocaust survivors Eva Geiringer Schloss and Ed Silverberg remembering their experiences and actors playing young versions of them during the war. The third family in the play is the Franks as all three families lived in the same neighborhood.
The play is unflinching, uncompromising, and uncomfortable, never letting you forget the continual onslaught of horrors and suffering. The palpable discomfort one feels is a recognition of the cataclysmic layers of injustice thrust upon a population who were simply born Jewish. These interconnected familial stories are intersected by the appearance of a young German boy and member of the Hitler youth (played by Colin Bozick).
The boy is never given a name. He’s a synecdoche for the indoctrination of hatred across the Hitler youth. He reminds us hate is taught and intergenerational as he parrots his father’s hatred of Jews – a doctrine that is reinforced by the Hitler youth.
As children, we idolize our parents, and one’s environmental influence has the potential for toxicity. By including the Hitler youth, Still resists easy devolution into an oversimplified black and white world where all Nazis are automatically bad.
We learn that he joined the Hitler youth at age 7, leaving no space for reaching his own conclusions – or questioning those of others. Bozick exudes earnestness. His performance has echoes of Orwell’s 1984 as he proudly brags about how he is expected to report his parents if they do not say “Heil Hitler,” which became a public greeting at the time.
The cross-generational, widespread readership of The Diary of Anne Frank tempts us to put Anne at the center of this narrative. Still’s subtitle of “Remembering the World of Anne Frank” reminds us her experience was widely shared.
Frank is portrayed by Molly Frontz who manifests a spirited lightness and wisdom beyond her years. She is both a boy-crazy teenager and a keen observer of the world around her. When Young Ed (Ayden Freed) confesses that his family worries he’s too old for her at 16, she scoffs and retorts, “Why I’ll be 16 in 3 years!” It’s said with all of the confidence of a teenager with the world in front of her.
As her future readers, her off-handed assumption is heart wrenching. We already know she will never see 16 as Anne dies in a concentration camp at age 15. The play traces the spectrum of oppression from Hitler coming into office through the end of the war.
All three families spend time in hiding with the Geiringer family splitting up – father and son in one place and mother and daughter Eva (Sadie Karashin) in another to reduce the burden and increase their odds of survival. Eva and her mother spend two years in hiding before they’re captured on Eva’s 15th birthday.
Their mother/teenaged daughter tensions are exacerbated by the fact they must spend their days sitting at a kitchen table in silence while the woman who owns the house is at work.
Sound designer Samantha Magill highlights the tedium of survival in silence with the booming sound of a loud ticking clock as Eva talks about minutes feeling like hours.
Opening night ended with a post-show discussion with local priest, Father John Nieman. Father John started corresponding with Otto Frank in the 1970s and visited him in Europe three times.
After Otto’s passing, Father John continued his friendship with Frank’s second wife, Fritzi (mother to Eva Geiringer). When asked, Father John shared that his most significant memory of the Franks was their kindness. Despite all they had suffered as targets of antisemitism and as Holocaust survivors, they were consummately kind, positive people.
It’s an apt reminder in a world that seems to embrace polarization; it is only through light that we shine and unite.
At one point, Heinz Geiringer (Jackson Frazer) comes home from his Austrian school bloody and crying. He tells his sister he was beaten by his classmates just for being Jewish while a teacher looked on and failed to intervene.
Last month’s beating and subsequent death of 16-year-old transgender student Nex Benedict by fellow students in their Oklahoma school bathroom is an echo through time of Heinz’s experience.
Events like these highlight that this play is more resonant and important than ever. The critically important work of protecting vulnerable groups and stopping hate crimes is tragically not timebound. We don’t have to shake our heads at history; we can all help create a more just future.
TKR, Ph.D., & TR
“And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank” runs through March 10, 2024 at the New Hazlett Center for Performing Arts in Pittsburgh, PA
